Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: fingolfen who wrote (146527)	10/31/2001 6:55:59 PM
From: Dan3	Respond to of 186894

Re: Any credible cost per wafer will include material, consumable, and tool depreciation cost per wafer start. It may be that the fixed costs (FAB shell, tools, design, etc.) plus the constant (process independent) variable costs (taxes, utilities, wafer testing, human resources, etc.) overwhelm the different etching and lithography costs of the processes. In other words, (imagine that Dresden had been fully ramped), producing die from 300,000 wafer starts at Dresden this year might have cost AMD $1400 million fixed (remember, we're treating labor and utility costs as fixed) and $300 million variable without SOI and yielded 23 million chips - $74 per chip. Next year they'll start 300,000 SOI wafers at a cost of $1400 million fixed and $450 million variable and produce 50 million chips - $37 per chip. This (thought experiment?) shows how costs might drop 50% as yielded die per wafer increases due to a process shrink - even if wafer processing costs increase by $500 per wafer because of .13 and SOI.